Famous Modern Ghost Stories eBook

After a winter in the town, to be dropped thus suddenly
into the intense quiet of the country-side makes an
almost ghostly impression upon one, as of an enchanted
silence, a silence that listens and watches but never
speaks, finger on lip. There is a spectral quality
about everything upon which the eye falls: the
woods, like great green clouds, the wayside flowers,
the still farm-houses half lost in orchard bloom—­all
seem to exist in a dream. Everything is so still,
everything so supernaturally green. Nothing moves
or talks, except the gentle susurrus of the spring
wind swaying the young buds high up in the quiet sky,
or a bird now and again, or a little brook singing
softly to itself among the crowding rushes.

Though, from the houses one notes here and there,
there are evidently human inhabitants of this green
silence, none are to be seen. I have often wondered
where the countryfolk hide themselves, as I have walked
hour after hour, past farm and croft and lonely door-yards,
and never caught sight of a human face. If you
should want to ask the way, a farmer is as shy as
a squirrel, and if you knock at a farm-house door,
all is as silent as a rabbit-warren.

As I walked along in the enchanted stillness, I came
at length to a quaint old farm-house—­“old
Colonial” in its architecture—­embowered
in white lilacs, and surrounded by an orchard of ancient
apple-trees which cast a rich shade on the deep spring
grass. The orchard had the impressiveness of
those old religious groves, dedicated to the strange
worship of sylvan gods, gods to be found now only in
Horace or Catullus, and in the hearts of young poets
to whom the beautiful antique Latin is still dear.

The old house seemed already the abode of Solitude.
As I lifted the latch of the white gate and walked
across the forgotten grass, and up on to the veranda
already festooned with wistaria, and looked into the
window, I saw Solitude sitting by an old piano, on
which no composer later than Bach had ever been played.

In other words, the house was empty; and going round
to the back, where old barns and stables leaned together
as if falling asleep, I found a broken pane, and so
climbed in and walked through the echoing rooms.
The house was very lonely. Evidently no one had
lived in it for a long time. Yet it was all ready
for some occupant, for whom it seemed to be waiting.
Quaint old four-poster bedsteads stood in three rooms—­dimity
curtains and spotless linen—­old oak chests
and mahogany presses; and, opening drawers in Chippendale
sideboards, I came upon beautiful frail old silver
and exquisite china that set me thinking of a beautiful
grandmother of mine, made out of old lace and laughing
wrinkles and mischievous old blue eyes.